Hanbury Clement
Clement Augustus Hanbury
The Hanbury family can be traced back to 1086, their ancestral home in Hanbury Hall, near Birmingham. A family history has been written, a copy of which was given to the Battye Library although this is now believed to be in the Eastern States.
Clement’s family came from the Birmingham area where his father, James Augustus Sewell Hanbury worked for Henry Merton & Co., which was a large metal manufacturing company. James spoke six languages and was the sales representative for the company in Europe. Clement Augustus Hanbury, was born on 29th December 1881 in Moseley, Worcestershire, England. His mother was Constance Mary Davidee Sarah (nee Alexander).
He came to Australia from England around 1900. When Clement first arrived in Western Australia he worked at Grass Valley for Lionel White who owned many properties and businesses in W.A. and was the Manager of Canning Mills. It is thought that this is how he heard of the property for sale at Karragullen by Mr. Chubb.Clement bought the orchard in Karragullen. Seven years after arriving in Australia, he married Olivia Jean Armstrong in Kelmscott, W.A. on the 7th November 1906. They lived in the original house he built made from face-cut timber and as the family grew so did the house. The orchard was named “The Hermitage” and was on the south side of Brookton Highway near the Rock Inn. (This property is now owned by the Cassotti family (2011).
The military type of schooling he had received in Germany did not give him much of a sense of home life and this was shown when he had his own children. The boys were treated strictly and had to stand at attention when the whistle blew at meal time. When the boys grew older they rebelled and went the other way.
Shown below are pictures of a postcard found in an old box of photos etc., left at the Armadale History Library. Nothing was known about it, other than what was written on it. The handwritten note was from a “May” to a “Mrs. Randles” and described the sad death of a two year old boy who fell off a buggy whilst waving to his mother. It tells of the difficulty of getting a Doctor to come and tend him and the distance needed to travel. It was dated November 3rd 1910. Research shows it happen in Karragullen and the little boy was Douglas Hanbury. Mystery partly solved.
They had a total of nine children:
Douglas G. A. born 30th August 1908 in Karragullen, W.A. Died 24th August 1910 (died tragically at age 2 when he fell from a buggy).
John Alfred Vernon born 5th April 1910 in Karragullen, W.A.
Died 19th May 2002 in Kalamunda Hospital, Kalamunda W.A. Married 23rd September 1940 Ena Jessie Davies.
Charles Armstrong born 8th July 1911 in Karragullen, W.A. Died 18th July 1983 in Perth, W.A.
Ernest Vincent born 6th March 1913 in Karragullen, W.A.
Died 11th June 2008 in Perth, W.A. Married Josephine Stewart (from Belfast, Ireland) 10th June 1962 in Bickley Seventh Day Adventist Church.
They had 4 children.
William Frederick born 24th July 1914 in Karragullen, W.A. Died 30th March 2006 in Rossmoyne, W.A.
Oliver born 13th June 1916 inKarragullen, W.A. Died 8th February 1998 in New Soth Wales. Married 18th November 1948 Myrtle Posselt
Dorothy Louise born 29th November 1915 in Karragullen, W.A. Married 2nd November 1940 Douglas Edward in Mount Lawley, W.A. Died 3rd February 2012 in Nedlands.
Kathleen Francis born 9th October 1920 in Karragullen, W.A.
Married 6th February 1943 Lient Russell Ernest Backman in Claremont, W.A.
Maitland Clement born 30th April 1924 in Karragullen, W.A.
Died 21st November 1998 in New South Wales. Married 13th November 1947 Esmee Emma Thomas in Broken Hill, N.S.W. Also married 1st October 1972 Orion Jessie Thomson in Cooranbong, N.S.W.
KARRAGULLEN SCHOOL 1914 Teacher: Miss MAGGIE FERGUSON Back Row (L-R): HARRY HUNTER, PERCY FELTS, HECTOR PRICE, HARRIET HUNTER, and THOMSETT Sisters & Baby Middle Row (L-R): CHARLIE THOMSETT, FLOSSIE FELTS, and three THOMSETT children Front Row (L-R): ? HANBURY, WILFRED PRICE , ALICE PRICE? and THOMSETT boys
In 1913 James retired and came to Western Australia to live in a small cottage on the orchard at Karragullen. His wife, Louise, died in England when he was on route to Western Australia. He always wore a top hat, ‘claw-hammer’ coat and carried a stick. James tried to get those ‘unruly’ Hanbury boys to speak very prim and proper but they rebelled against this and John particularly was well known for his typical Aussie twang and expressions such as ‘Stone the crows!’ and ‘Starve the lizards!’
Their eldest son, John earned pocket money of one penny (one cent) per hour. One of his jobs was to wheel the youngest boy, Maitland, around the orchard in his pram. He wore a track around the boundary – all to get a mouth organ. He had a great ambition to play this mouth organ in order to keep up with his friends at school.
The need for a public hall was expressed by local residents and resulted in a meeting being held at the Hanbury residence on 18th July 1914 to discuss possible plans and specifications of a hall to cost approximately 100 pounds ($200). Once the plan was decided upon it was proposed that the settlers themselves via “Busy Bees” and under expert supervision, would carry out the erection. Donations towards the building fund have been collected from local residents and also from various City firms interested in the district.
In 1916 Clement took a year away from the orchard and began teaching school at Barton’s Mill. He took John (aged 5) with him and they would drive over in the buggy on Sunday night and return at the end of the week. During winter, Kangaroo Creek was often flooded and the water came to the floorboards of the buggy and it was hard for the horse to cross. The mill was working then and there were quite a lot of children at the school. While Clement was away teaching, a neighbour, Mr Simpson of Rokewood Orchard, oversaw the property and supplied a workman. After Clement finished teaching at Barton’s Mill and returned to live on the orchard, John had to walk about two miles across the bush to the Illawarra Orchard school. Tom Price was the manager at that time and wanted the school there so he employed new arrivals from England – if they had a lot of children! Some of the families were the Thomsetts, Davies, Lillyman, Prosser, Stanley and the Lantzke. Maggie Ferguson was a teacher there. She lived on the other side of Karragullen and rode a big black horse to school. The children loved to ride it around the school in break times.
James passed away in his 89th year on the 16th August 1939 at Cottesloe and was buried on 17th August 1939 in the Church of England portion of Karrakatta Cemetery. Officiated by the Rev. W. G. Painter.
In March 1917 the Trustees of the Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery of Western Australia acknowledged two donations by Mr. J. A. S. Hanbury of Karragullen. They were “A Deed of Purchase 1737” and an “Indenture of Apprenticeship 1737”. This was reported in “The West Australia” on Friday 9th March 1917.
RECENT PICTURE HANBURY'S BARN
During the war the school was moved to the present site of the Rock Inn. While it was being built, the school was held in a big stone barn at the Hanbury’s property. It was still being held there when the First World War ended in 1918. John remembers that all the children received a peace medal to commemorate the end of the war. The stone shed is still in use on the orchard (2011).
Some of the early settlers around Karragullen about this time were the Prossers who began an orchard in 1900. They sold it to Coulter and Son who in turn sold it to the Smailes family. They had the land resumed in the c1920’s. At a place called Corner Gully a fellow named Mittendi leased land. He made very little money and lived off apples and cocoa. A sign of the times is shown in the name of the property owned by the Lilleymans – “Stoney Broke”! It was actually named by the Jacksons, “a wild mob” who lived off the land. Their grandfather, A. S. Jackson, had one ambition and that was to have a barrel of wine, a long straw and a comfortable mattress under the trees. He spent a lot of time at the Canning Mills pub and when he had had too much to drink, loved to pick fights with the mill hands.
Apples were the main crop grown in the Hanbury orchard, Granny Smith, Dohertys, and Yates – now considered to be the “old’ varieties. The apples were taken to Perth markets by train after being carted to the Karragullen siding by horse and cart. Clement also made some money by making wine for the local men however when he became a Seventh Day Adventist, he poured the wine out, much to the horror of the locals.
A Mr. Dunn, who traveled the area selling books for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, left him a book to read and when he returned Clement told him he had read it when in fact he had not. He felt bad about this so he did read it and became so interested he joined the church. He tried to teach the boys this religion too and had them line up for religious instruction on Saturdays. They were not a bit interested, being a pretty wild mob by then and neither was his wife. However, things were to change for John. One day, when in his teens, he was swimming in the Canning Dam and nearly drowned. He could swim a little but when he went under in some deep water he lost his head. He was pulled out but had an awful fright and thought ‘he was on the edge of eternity’ so decided he had better pay more attention to what his father was on about. And he began going to various religious services held in the little old church at Karragullen, until one day he was inspired by the Pastor’s lesson and became an Adventist. There was quite a mix of religions in the area, John well remembers a friend coming to see him, dressed in his best suit, wanting to say “goodbye”. When asked where he was going he said it was the day Jehovah’s Witnesses were being raptured away. The friend was rather put out when nothing happened.
When John was older he, his brothers and his friends used to catch and break in wild horses. There were many wild horses in the Karragullen area at that time, they had bred up from horses let go by families walking off their land due to hardship. When they were caught and corralled, the boys tied their heads to their tails with rope – no mean feat! The boys then banged tins and buckets loudly, frightening the horses who tried to run but only managed to run in circles. This was kept up for a few days, the horses being fed and watered each time they stood still. They were then bagged all over with a chaff bag and again fed when they stood still. Within a few days they began to call when they saw the boys coming because they then knew that they would be fed. The horses were sold to the orchardists in the area, many went to the new Italian settlers. Ken Smailes was one of the boys who helped break the brumbies. When his parent’s orchard was resumed by the Water Board, Ken became a blacksmith and horse-breaker.
The boys knew every tree and stump in the Poison and Kangaroo Gullies to Death Adder Creek and White’s well. The locals started a Pony Club at Roleystone. The Ranger at Canning Dam, Jack Hilton, the Buckinghams and the Thompsons all rode. George Simpson, who was at that time helping Mr. Bevan, asked the Pony Club lads to run a herd of horned cattle from Roleystone to Midland saleyards. They managed to get them yarded and set off early in the morning via Kalamunda. All went well until they came to the first gardens in the village then all hell broke loose with cattle running everywhere. They ruined gardens, broke washing off lines and generally created havoc. It took the boys all day to get them to Midland and then they had to ride home again.
In 1928 John took the day off for his birthday and he and his brother Charles rode to Mount Dale. On the way home, singing at the top of their voices, Charles thought he heard a Dingo. John thought he was imagining and continued on but sure enough there was another loud call. When they came to the No. 4 railway formation – where the mill tramways were built – they found two girls standing there. They could not believe their eyes as they were miles from anywhere. The girls had been lost for hours. They had gone into the bush, to answer a call of nature, near a bridge over a road. The boys realised they meant the crossing at Kangaroo Gully, towards Karragullen, but they were heading straight through the bush to Beverley. They took the girls, dinky style on the horses, back to the road where they found two young men frantically cooeeing into the dark.
John Hanbury left school at the age of thirteen and worked on the orchard. In order to make extra money he also cut sleepers for Syd Smailes, who had married John’s father’s sister Edith. Because of his age John always cut with a more experienced man, usually Mr Buckingham.
When the depression came in the 1930’s orcharding became unprofitable, sometimes fruit was sent to market and the growers received a bill from the selling merchants. The pressures and demands of supporting a family and maintaining an orchard that was not profitable proved to be too much for many in the fruit-growing industry. Clement surcumbed to these tremendous pressures and reacted quite out of character in his treatment to the family and eventually found it all too much to cope with, and walked out on his family. Clement went to the gold fields and the orchard was given up, the family moving to a house at Canning Mills. Later a house was built opposite the mill. This house was owned by William Hanbury.
On the 12th October 1933 Olivia filed for divorce from Clements and this case was reported in the “Western Augus” as follows:
A REMARKABLE STORY Hanbury Divorce Case Wife Obtains Decree
“Having sustained her plea that her husband, Clement Augustus Hanbury, an orchardist, formerly of Karragullen, had deserted her over three years ago, although he continued to live in the same house with her until April 3 last, Olivia Jean Hanbury was granted a divorce by Mr. Justice Dwyer in the Divorce Court today.
The case first came before the court on September 15 last, when the petitioner gave evidence to the effect that the respondent, who was a man of stern religious views, had never spoken to her willingly or treated her as a wife since they had quarreled over a trifling matter four years age. He would communicate with her by notes and, apart from appearing at meals, had no association with her or the children. There were nine children of the marriage. On April 3 last, he left the house without saying where he was going and had not returned. His Honour then adjourned the case, remarking that the facts appeared to him to be equally consistent with the petitioner having withdrawn herself from her husband.
Today, the housemaid who had been employed by the Hanbury family, stated in evidence that Hanbury was always miserable, and made others miserable. He allowed practically no amusements in the house. Other members of the family appeared to be afraid of him. He became worse after a quarrel four years ago.
Hanbury’s brother-in-law described Hanbury as a morose, stubborn man, holding extreme and somewhat eccentric religious views. He habitually rebuffed his wife’s efforts to establish friendly relations, and would never join in social family gatherings. His Honour said that, in view of the additional evidence, he would grant the decree asked for. The petitioner was given the custody of the four younger children of the marriage, and respondent was ordered to pay the costs of the case.”
CHARLES aged 14 & OLIVIA HANBURY c1926
BUGGY with JOHN HANBURY on left
Charles and Ernest also went prospecting at Marvel Loch and later John and Ernest began prospecting seven miles north of Larkinville where they found a new show which gave them 45 ounces of gold per ton of ore at about ten pounds (money) per ounce. They thought this wonderful, so did the bank manager in Kalgoorlie who welcomed them with open arms. After living rough in the bush for so long, John could not wait to spend his money on shirts, boots, mattresses, hats, suits and blankets.
They worked the show for a while longer but gradually became fed up with the bush and sold it to Debenales, of London Court fame. Debenales bought many shows but not always to his benefit. He panned one dig and thought he had a fairly rich show but it turned out to be brass filings from a ram rod.
When John sent the ore to the battery at Coolgardie, it was sent on to Kalgoorlie as the battery was full at Coolgardie. He had no idea of how to put ore through the battery and was advised to employ an old German fellow, who everyone called Jack Brown, to help him and show him how to work the battery and clean up and so on.
When he arrived at Brown’s house he knocked on the door and out came a young lady combing her long hair. She was Ena Davies from Toodyay. John had met her brothers years before at Toodyay when gold was discovered there. Ena was taking care of Mrs. Brown who was blind. John later married Ena in 1940.
John described the crushing of their ore at the battery thus; “The battery Jack Brown helped us with was a ten head stamper – there were five crushers on each side. When one was empty the other crushed. You had to book your turn at the crusher as there were so many men in the goldfields. Your turn was in the middle of the night so you can imagine what it was like with water up to your ankles and the terrible racket. The water flows over copper plates with an amalgum of quicksilver on them which the gold sticks to. You have to scrape the gold off the quicksilver. I stood looking all around thinking everyone was going to pinch our gold as I was new to the game. I asked Jack how it looked and he said in his heavy accent “Oh! It don’t look too good boys”. The plates did not look as if there was much on them. Well! We scraped and scraped, but if you scrape too hard, you scrape the copper off the plates. Anyway, when they pulled the screen off the front of the battery the amalgum was full of coarse gold that did not go through the box.
ENA DAVIES AGED 5 YEARS
JOHN HANBURY AT LOGAN'S FIND, LARKINVILLE 1935
By the time we did a few more crushings we were glad to sell to Dedenales. He bought it as a spec but it wasn’t one of those big shows that went down thousands of feet and I don’t think it came to much in the end. We went down about a hundred feet. We had to dig it all by hand. When I first found the floater, which is a bit of rock off a seam which has floated to the surface, with a bit of red on it, we were digging down a bit of an old hole.
Now, when I started the men told us that when we found a rock with a bit of red on it, it was probably iron and iron was associated with gold. There was all sorts of white quartz all around so I decided to dolly up the floater in the dolly pot. So, in went the rock. I crushed it and panned it in a drop of water and got a tail of gold in it. I went over to the hole and yelled down to my brother, “Why didn’t you clean out the dolly pot?” “What pot?” he said and up he came like a flash because he knew from my voice that I had something. When I showed him, his eyes stuck right out. I took him over to the place I found it, but of course we were as green as grass and didn’t know what to do.
Anyway, every week we rode our bike to Larkinville, down to old telegraph line, to get our mail. There were hundreds of men down there with dry blowers and shakers and I don’t know what. We told one or two about picking up the floater and they were giving us all sorts of advice. There was on bloke there we called the Mad Yank, he was from Alaska and Death Valley and all over. This bloke was a bit of an inventor and had a tiny dry blower, the best really because you didn’t need water. The ore went in at the top, was crushed and the dust blown out the bottom. Anyway, he lent us this and showed us how to put a run across. You do a run in a line, taking a sample every few feet, and mark the line, then do another line and when the lines come to a peak at the top of a triangle, that’s where you dig. So we did this but we didn’t really know if we were wasting our time or not. Anyway, when we got to the top we sat down and thought about it and I just dug the pick in and about six inches down, struck this reef.
JOHN HANBURY AT LOGAN'S FIND, LARKINVILLE 1936
WILLIAM FREDERICK HANBURY
We got to work and dug down alongside the reef until we got down to about seventy feet. The ground was getting a bit hard by now so we decided to make a drive – a horizontal shaft. We went alongside the reef about thirty feet. In the meantime we had been learning about loaming which is a bit like what we were doing before, testing places all around. I was a bit loam mad at the time and was always out trying to find new places.
I was out one day digging around when I saw a great big chap with a big handle bar mustache, coming along. I sang out “Good Day” and he said “Good Day” and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he asked me why I wasn’t down the show. I asked him who he was and was told he was the Mining Inspector. We had to send a report in every month because we were being paid fifteen shillings a week with which we used to order things from Sheeds in Kalgoorlie. (This fifteen shillings was not exactly sustenance as we had to pay it back from our earnings.) They would send our orders down on the train. The station was about three miles across the sand plain. Anyway, I took him over to the show with him striding and swaggering along. When we got there he lit his gas lamp and went down the ladder to the bottom of the shaft. He went along the drive with his pick taking bits from here and there. When he gets to the end he said, “Here, where is the stringer?” Well, a stringer is the smallest bit of gold you can find, so I said, “You mean the reef, it’s back at the shaft”. We went back to the shaft and I showed him where we had dug alongside the reef. He took some more samples and took them up to the dolly pot and put them through and asked how much we thought it would go. We said we would be happy with half an ounce and of course it went the ounce to the ton.”
Canning Mills School 1939
Back Row: Wally Sharpe, Roy Bovani,
Maitland Hanbury, Stan Ursich,
Jack Ursich, Phillip Sleight.
Middle Row: Barbara Sleight, Sleight,
Lyn Sleight, Angelina Ursich,
Anne Ursich.
Front Row: Silio Dimarco, Blagz Ursich,
Regie Ursich, Lucy Sharpe,
Sleight.
Sitting: Billy Sleight, Bert Ursich
John Hanbury left the goldfields in 1939. He tried selling books for the church etc., but “was no good at it”. He did more prospecting, especially in the Southern Cross area. It was here that he found what he though was a really big find but just couldn’t get it right and nearly went broke.
Of course, the best one he ever found was if 1942, just before he was called up in the Army. This one John loamed up like a chess board and found a few colours, you then come back to where the best one is and dig down six inches. If there is still gold at six inches you don’t know that’s where the gold is coming up. Well, six feet down there was a huge show, quartz running right along with gold sticking out. He dollying it up and put it into peanut paste jars. A twelve ounce peanut paste jar holds fifty ounces of gold – its very heavy stuff. A cubic foot block of gold weight a ton. This was south of Marvel Loch. John remembers going to the Bank at Marvel Loch, they used to come out every Thursday from the Bank of New South Wales, and dumping a couple of jars on the counter. He didn’t know it but the local policeman was behind me. He jumped when he yelled, “Where did you get that?” The policeman was jealous because he did prospecting too. They were not supposed to but they all did.”
On the 22nd June 1936 Olivia’s stepmother, Alice Elizabeth Armstong passed away at her residence “Gilmor”, Albany Highway, Kelmscott aged 72 years.
In 1942, John Hanbury was called to the Army and served in the Medical Corps as an orderly at Hollywood Hospital until being sent to Queensland as an ambulance driver. There he contracted terrible dermatitis in his feet which prevented him from going overseas, although Charles Hanbury did serve in New Guinea. After the war Charles went back to the goldfields and died of miner’s lung disease.
The other siblings scattered far and wide. Ernest then living in Bickley, William moving between Karragullen and Southern Cross where he fossicked for gold, Dorothy was now living in Nedlands, Kathleen was in Melbourne and Oliver and Maitland were in New South Wales.
On leaving the Army in 1945, John Hanbury leased the Palmateer orchard at Heidelberg, Bickley. Mrs. Palmateer lived in a big house while John and his family lived in a cottage at the top end of the property, on what is now Heidelberg Road’ The cottage is no longer there. By this time John and Ena had a family, Colleen, Margaret, Douglas and Shirley, who were able to attend the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Bickley. After school the children, especially Douglas, helped John to plant apple, walnut and peach trees and to bring the orchard back to peak production. Many of the children’s school friends helped in the orchard after school to earn pocket money. John was not able to employ a man to help but was happy to pay the children a little.
Left-Right: JOHN HANBURY, DOROTHY EDWARD & Baby RODERIC, WILLIAM HANBURY, OLIVIA HANBURY, Possibly DAWN MARKEY 1940s
When Mrs. Palmateer died, George and Audrey Murley, her daughter and son-in-law, moved on to the property and John was more or less working for them. This did not suit John and when he was asked to go prospecting for mineral sands in the Mundijong area, he jumped at the chance. Unfortunately this soon fizzled out and he was back in Kalamunda again. This time he worked for Jones the plumber for a few years until in 1966 he and Ena took a job as house-parents on the Seventh Day Adventist Mission at Karalundi where they stayed for three years. During this time his Son-in-law had started a little business putting down bitumen driveways but when he wanted to sell out, he offered the business to John, giving him three weeks to raise the money. John found it hard to raise the money from the bank as he was renting his house while trying to raise the money to buy that as well. He tried to interest his friend at Bickley, Lindsay Waugh, to buy the business fifty fifty, which he did, Waugh being the sleeping partner. The business took off “on the crest of a wave” and employed several men. This lasted for about ten years and when the business gradually slowed down, it was sold and John retired.
John Hanbury is well known in the area for his fruit grafting abilities. John and Ena observe the Seventh Day Adventist day of rest on the Saturday and after church services were always glad to welcome their family and friends for a meal at their home at Stacy Road, Carmel.
Olivia passed away there 29 May, 1958. The house at Canning Mills was eventually purchased and demolished by the Water Supply department. In 1960 Clement Hanbury went to live with John and Ena Hanbury in Bickley until he moved to a nursing home in Victoria Park where he died 26 November, 1963.
Portions of this story are extracts from an interview between John Hanbury and Jenny Keast about the Hanbury family.
Every endeavour has been made to accurately record the details however if you would like to provide additional images and/or newer information we are pleased to update the details on this site. Please click here to email us at info@pickeringbrookheritagegroup.com.au We appreciate your involvement in recording the history of our area.
References Article: Jenny Keast
Pickering brook heritage group
Photos: Shirley (nee Hanbury) & John Bishop
Tom Price
1 City of Armadale